Is anyone else really scared of the prospect of waking up to a tory administration on May 7th?

[electra]

Because I am! i think it will be truly awful. Don't get me wrong, I don't think labour are fabulous but omg surely they are better than another Thatcher style administration?? I have a disabled child who is 8 years old.......I somehow doubt that it will be any easier to get her what she needs as she goes into her teenage years under a conservative government. It's hard enough now!!

Yesterday the blues were campaigning in our town centre - I live in a swing area - traditionally tory but fell to new labour in 1997. They seem so.....backward thinking to me.

Am I overreacting? Is there an upside at all?

Okay, put it another way - I think he gets support by doing that thing of blaming certain problems on certain groups in society - so, immigrants to blame for unemployment, housing probs, oversubscribed schools etc. then drug users to blame for crime rates, and so on.

My view, and it is only my view, is that nothing is ever as clear-cut as that. you can't lump all drug abusers or all immigrants, or all elderley/disabled people together as a group. Society is made up of individuals, some good, some less good, some work hard, some find work hard to get, and some people are downright unfortunate by the lot they get given in life. So don't go lumping them all together in daily mail style headlines so people who don't identify with then can build up a fear and hatred of them, that's all.

At first I thought I didnt want labour OR the tories, so was voting lib dem. Now I have done more reading, I am definitely lib dem, but I want labour much more than the tories, they really are scary!

1. what are they actually going to cut?
2. Why havent they got any decent policies? theyve had 4 years! If they havent even done their job for this, theyre not likely to be much good in government.
3. Lots of tax breaks for their millionaire chums (the rest of us can starve no doubt)
4. tax breaks for all their old school chums (inheritance).
5. 'Opportunities' for companies to steal our money make profits in schools, hospitals, at the benefits office (apparently thats going to be privatised too!)

I could go on but have things to do..

No I would agree OP.

I am very worried. Very worried indeed.

I was unsure but having seen him in action last night, well he did not instill confidence. I did not think, Yeah he could do it.

But a positive is that Lib Dem seem to be a far more popular option now. I would have been worried that a vote for them would be leaving things too wide open but I am actually thinking it would be worth putting a little faith in them and the rest of Britain's voters.

Now my choice is Brown, who has made mistakes but has also made good calls or Clegg who talks a good talk but does not have any experience. But then his party has the experience of how many decades in 'opposition'?

Oh, I have never felt such a massive responsibility as a voter. This time, every single vote really does count and if we get it wrong...

Fuck it, tis friday night, am going to open wine and catch up with S&B.

sorry to laugh, but surely the society is made up of individuals thing is nearly what Thatcher said during the no such thing as society speech?

But I do agree with you there thirtysomething, so we are not so different after all but I would argue that Labour are rather more guilty of lumping together individuals so that they can legislate against them.

Yes, me. Petrified. Seriously scary thought.

I hope people get out there and vote, not for the Tories and not for Labour. And not for small independant parties either.

yeah but my take on Thatcher is that she created an each-for-himself type state whereby everyone became more individualistic and out for what he could get. Thatcher radically changed the way British society saw itself, and not in a good way IMHO.

What I meant was that you can't generalise about people lumping them together because of one notable thing they are or do-like the colour of their skin or a habit they indulge in. It's never as straightforward as that and encouraging distrust and fear of particular groups in society by blaming them for certain problems has not shown itself to be a very worthwhile strategy. History is full of examples of mass hatred of certain factions of society. That's what I don't like about him.

I am too.

But I don't know where he has said stuff like that.

I would agree with you that what you describe is a bad idea.

I would agree with you in that I would never have voted for the last Tory administration, they were nasty and uncaring.

DC doesn't seem uncaring or full of hatred towards certain sections of society to me. I realise that lots of people on here will roll their eyes and say "Of course he is racist/homophobic/intolerent he is a TORY. FROM ETON. What does he know about real life blah blah blah" but that does not constitute a real argument imo.

It does to me. He is a tory. From Eton. What the hell does he know about the problems facing the average person? Zilch. He has the chat though being a PR man.

Well i felt he was saying it last night tbh but I must have been watching a different debate I think! Or maybe despite my best efforts, and previous slight defrosting towards DC, I couldn't remain objective.

I don't think Tories are all those things you say at all, and I'm not saying he's racist or homophobic at all - I think you've misunderstood me completely if you think that. i just think he has a way with words that appears to be blaming certain groups in order to win votes, that's all. The fact he went to Eton and Oxford is irrelevant to his political views. I went to one of those and I have very opposite views to his!

Perhaps none of this constitutes a real argument to you. However I thought the whole point of last night was so that we all, as citizens, could make up our own minds about who to vote for, without all statements being filtered through the media. So I have therefore reached my own opinion about DC and I'm sorry if that doesn't seem like a proper argument to you but I sense it's how most of us will decide where to put our X on 6th May.

How can a man who has never had a proper job in his life, comes with every privilege and as far as I can see has very little in the way of policies make this Country better? DC is a dispicable man as are his party - sad day for most of us if he and his party are elected!

No.
Much more worried if Labour get in again.

I'm terrified of it. The smarmy plastic fantastic and his posh boy, look after the wealthy and they will look after us cronies. It's the worst thing that could possibly happen for me and my family.

I couldn't care less where he was taught. It is the policies and how they are carried out that matters. I really want to know:

1. What are they going to cut?
2. Does "cut" mean job cut? If so from where?

I don't buy the caring conservative thing. I do not think they will be able to make things better for the majority of us. I think it will be worse. worse. No doubt some people would benefit but many of us won't. They don't care about those who can't care for themselves.

no thirtysomething, I meant that all the stuff about personality is not a proper argument, that all this running down what he IS rather than what he says he is going to do is rather irritating

don't vote for him because of his policies, not because of his background

Yes. Lone parent with a local government job

Well, quite - which policies do I object to? It's hard to say since he has no intention of telling us what they are ie - where cuts will be made, who will suffer. The marriage tax break thing is a horrid discrimination. So, the only legitimate form of relationship is a married heterosexual couple? And single parents should be penalised as it is our fault our marriages failed? As I said, backward thinking...

Am reaLLY SCARED that the tories will get in. We are living on one average London wage (dp hasntbeen able to get a job atm) and getting by at the moment (just) with no car, no holidays and a mortgage on a small house on the very edge of London. If the Tories raise my tax as they say they will then thats us on the breadline, house gone cos we wont be able to afford it and not able to afford to rent which is twice the price of our mortgage. Worse off doesnt even come into it, we will be in dire poverty.

Quite interesting around Bristol, when you look at the campaign posters. In the countryside it's all Tory, in the nice leafy suburbs all Liberals, but even in the council areas NO-ONE had any labour posters up.
Most people are so apathetic, they won't vote and some don't even know how to ?
Most other countries have citizens who will dodge bullets and beatings to vote.

If I could see a manifesto from the Tories that was anything like the Lib Dem manifesto - ie with proper policies - I might be less uneasy. I was inclined to vote Tory before the start of this campaign, but the past days and weeks have made me like them less and less.

DC had nothing to say last night on the economy except for scrapping the proposed NI increase, £6 billion "efficiency savings" and protecting the NHS from cuts. The lack of detail and candour worries me now.

Humphrey, I had a tory campaigner knock on my door yesterday, lovely lady and very personable but all she wanted to know from me was "could they rely on my vote?" I explained it would be a first but that I wanted to weigh up each manifesto before making a decision. And then "But who did I prefer 'personality-wise'". I was a little gobsmacked. I thought politics was about policies and britain's got talent was about popularity.

So what is the tory campaign about? Popularity or policies?

HC I didn't even mention his background-you did! And as I said I don't think his background actually has any bearing on my vote. i'm from a virtually identical background and yet my political views are very different to his. It happens. It's called inidividual philosophy/life experience, and we all have those whether we went to an inner-city comp or Eton.

Like others have said I too would like to hear his policies. So far all I've seen are the "Vote Conservative" posters telling us what Labour did/didn't do. I'm always very suspicious when a campaign is based on negative name-calling and finger-pointing. Same last night it seemed - blaming labour/certain types of people for society's problems, without much substance about what they are proposing.

thirtysomething - i do...how can he have any understanding of the plight of Joe Average with his Eton/Bullingdon/Viscountess wife

he never even dabbled in politics at University
It's a career for Cameron not a passion